YaY! Anonymous steps up its war with Scientology

A group of vigilantes--calling themselves Anonymous, or Anon--are escalating their attacks against the Church of Scientology in what they consider to be Internet censorship by issuing new video challenges. In one video posted to YouTube, Anonymous addresses the many news organizations covering the war, stating that the group has been watching. While the individuals behind the effort generally support the coverage, they also severely fault the media.

"We find it interesting that you did not mention the other objections in your news reporting. The stifling and punishment of dissent within the totalitarian organization of Scientology. The numerous, alleged human rights violations. Such as the treatment and events that led to the deaths of victims of the cult such as Lisa McPherson.

This Cult is Nothing but a psychotically driven pyramid scheme.

Why are you, the news media, afraid of discussing these matters? It is your duty to report on these matters.You are failing in your duty."

Lisa McPherson was a member of the Flag Service Organization, a branch of the Church of Scientology, whose death in 1995 remains controversial. Although the Church of Scientology was initially held responsible, felony charges against it were dropped when the medical examiner ruled her death was an accident. A civil suit against the church by McPherson's parents was settled in 2004.

At one point in the video, Anonymous says, perhaps in response to its growing numbers of critics, "this is not religious persecution, but the suppression of a powerful, criminal fascist regime."

A request for comment from the Church of Scientology has not yet been answered.

On Friday, Anonymous also posted on YouTube a second YouTube video to the Church of Scientology, this time addressed to its many followers.

"Your religious beliefs are not wrong, like any other religion, and they are yours to keep. However beliefs should not come at a price. Not from your wallet or compromising your thoughts.

Those who have left feel a new life, a rebirth into true freedom. You can join them if you wish. You may not believe us. We ask of you one thing: Make up your own mind. That is a sentence of more profound meaning for you now than at any other time in your life."

Both videos continue a trend in using a computer-generated voice over stylized video. A Web site called Project Chanology continues to detail present and future actions by Anonymous and others.

Administrators for 711chan.org, one of the websites responsible for starting Project Chanology, a "raid" or attack against the Church of Scientology and their website, slowed down their "attack".

In an exclusive interview with Wikinews, an administrator of 711chan states that they will "probably stay away from the CoS [Church of Scientology]." "We're probably just going to stay away from the CoS raid. It was poorly managed. We could've brought down a lot more if we weren't just a bunch of unorganized brats," said 'Plasma', an administrator on 711chan.org.

"Many people from 711chan still want to raid, but the administration is sick of it," added Inaki who also stated that "Partyvan IRC actually has decided to remove the raid."

Much of the reason stems from the fact that the attack on the Church was meant to stay within 711chan and that users were to stay "anonymous." An e-mail was leaked on the internet when the attack began exposing the script used to attack the Church's website.

"This is not what the raid originally started as. Partyvan declares this as a threat to the network, and Anonymous alike. We have been under constant botnet attacks, 711chan hacked, and tons of drama over this. You guys did a very poor job of staying Anonymous. It's obvious that a lot of you broke rules 1, and 2," said a statement on 711chan's website.

The rules they refer to, according to Inaki, mean the "Rules of the Internet" and are:

1. Do not talk about /b/ (Only applies to raids.) 2. Do NOT talk about /b/ (eBaums did it.)

Both key rules were broken by users, according to Plasma.

The attack on Scientology was launched on Wednesday January 16 by a group labelled "Anonymous", on the website "Insurgency Wiki", a spinoff of 4chan which is also affiliated with 711chan. The "History" section of the site explains, in a satirical fashion, that the incident was prompted by the Church of Scientology's attempts to remove a promotional video featuring Scientologist Tom Cruise from YouTube. Though YouTube complied with the Church of Scientology's requests to take down the video, other sites such as Gawker.com stated that they will keep hosting the video.

One poster admitted to being a part of the effort, writing in a blog post "I have myself, as per instructions, loaded up Gigaloader and started bombarding the Scientology homepage. Theres [sic] something in the hilarious anarchy of the net that produces these 'events' every now and again." The poster wrote that "Prompted I think by the Tom Cruise video, a new obsession is taking hold on the internet. An insurgency against The Church of Scientology."

Not long after their attack, a previously unknown group called The Regime used keylogging to gain an administrator password to 711chan.org.

"I was actually away from home when I noticed my personal dedi was compromised (my bash_history file had lots of strange entries), so I informed Partyvan IRC staff (the CoS raid room as well as 711chan's IRC room are there) and minutes later, 711chan's machine was also compromised. I arrived home around an hour later, and immediately restored the contents of the 711 machine back to a previous state. I also got the passwords reset on my dedi and that was back in order. I went to bed shortly after that," said Plasma in regards to The Regime's attack on 711chan.

"The next morning I wake up to hundreds of MSN windows and emails telling me both servers have been compromised again, and our backups for 711 have been removed. The software we use to run 711chan's machine got bugged up somehow and make it difficult for me to fix things, which is why the site didn't respond at all for most of the day. At the time of writing this I still haven't got the backups reloaded onto the machine," added Plasma.

Plasma states that 711chan.org will be off line at least until the end of January, possibly longer, but the site is not expected to change.

"I shut down our server to prevent any more damage. Right now, our plan is to lay low and get stuff started up on a more secure machine. We'll be back up by the end of the month, hopefully. 711chan will probably be staying the same it is, however," said Plasma.

But they didn't go down without a fight adds Plasma.

"As who the "Regime" is? I took a look at one of the things they planted on my machine, which lead me to #!!regime on GameSurge IRC. `immortal' and about 30 drones were in that channel. Members of the g00ns community (allies of 711, also linked to Partyvan IRC) found out they had dox (documents such as phone numbers, addresses, SSN numbers, names, that sort of thing) on `immortal' and his wife. I actually have these details and attempted to call him, but it went unanswered," said Plasma.

The information that 711chan.org obtained was later posted on the website operated by The Regime. Wikinews has attempted to contact The Regime a second time regarding the incident, and they have only replied with "your articles are bullshit."

The Internet-based group "Anonymous" released a new video on YouTube Monday, announcing international protests outside Church of Scientology centers set for February 10. The video "Call to Action" uses the same computer synthesized voice as a previous video titled "Message to Scientology", which was posted to YouTube last Monday. The "Message to Scientology" video has been viewed over 1,400,000 times, and the "Call to Action" video has already been viewed over 237,000 times.

Anonymous is taking action against the Church of Scientology in response to what it sees as suppression of freedom of speech on the Internet. The group was first motivated after the Church of Scientology issued a copyright infringement claim to YouTube regarding a promotional video of Scientologist Tom Cruise speaking about his beliefs and using Scientology jargon. The Church of Scientology also issued a legal complaint to the website Gawker.com which is also hosting the video, but Gawker has stated it will not take the video down because it is newsworthy.

Anonymous set up a movement called "Project Chanology" to coordinate their efforts, and took down several Church of Scientology websites through denial-of-service attacks. Members of Anonymous have also participated in prank calls to Church of Scientology centers, as well as protests or "raids" outside Scientology buildings, and have posted some of their exploits to YouTube.

In the "Call to Action" video, Anonymous denies that they are composed solely of "super hackers", stating "Anonymous is a collective of individuals united by an awareness that someone must do the right thing, that someone must bring light to the darkness, that someone must open the eyes of a public that has slumbered for far too long." The video goes on to state "We want you to be aware of the very real dangers of Scientology," citing what they term "gross human violations".

Specific controversial events in Scientology history are cited in the video, including Operation Freakout and Paulette Cooper, and Operation Snow White. Operation Freakout was the name of a Church of Scientology operation whose goal was to "get P.C. [Paulette Cooper] incarcerated in a mental institution or jail or at least to hit her so hard that she drops her attacks." Paulette Cooper had written a book critical of Scientology called The Scandal of Scientology. Operation Snow White was the name of a Church of Scientology operation where members of the Church's secretive Guardian's Office infiltrated United States government agencies in Washington, D.C. including the I.R.S. The F.B.I.'s investigation into Operation Snow White led them to discover the planning of actions taken against Paulette Cooper.

The video concludes by inviting the viewer to "take up the banner of free speech" and protest with Anonymous world wide. In an email to CNET News, Anonymous stated that cities where unknown activities are planned on February 10 include New York City, Montreal, Houston, London, Melbourne, and Los Angeles.

On Friday, two spokespersons for the Church of Scientology commented on the recent actions of Anonymous. A spokesman told News.com.au "These types of people have got some wrong information about us," and Church spokeswoman Yvette Shank told Sun Media that she regarded members of Anonymous as a "pathetic" group of "computer geeks". On Monday, Radar reported that the Church of Scientology has asked the U.S. Attorney General's office in Los Angeles, the F.B.I., and the LAPD to start a criminal investigation of possible criminal activity related to the Internet attacks. A source told Radar that the Church of Scientology is arguing that the Internet attacks are a form of "illegal interference with business." Radar also reports that the Church of Scientology is emphasizing its status as a religious organization in the United States, in order to assert that the Internet attacks can be classed as hate crimes.

On Saturday, Mark Bunker of the website XenuTV.com posted a video to YouTube criticizing the illegal actions of Anonymous and suggested legal methods for them to retaliate against the Church of Scientology, including peaceful protesting, writing letters to their government representatives, and persuading the United States government to take away the Church of Scientology's tax exempt status. In the video, Bunker states "I'm mainly concerned because you shouldn't be doing things that are illegal, you just shouldn't. It's not morally right, and it's not right when Scientology does it, it's not right when we do it." Bunker's video post has been viewed over 156,000 times. On Sunday, Bunker posted a follow-up video to YouTube where he gives advice to Anonymous on how to peacefully picket. He also provides viewers with resources and weblinks to more information on how to hold a peaceful protest. He concludes this video by imitating Obi-Wan Kenobi's Jedi mind trick technique and voice from Star Wars, stating "And if I may, as Obi-Wan, tell you: You will do nothing illegal ".